Mangini, 37, came to the Jets as the youngest coach in the NFL before the 2006 season, replacing Herm Edwards. His first season, the Jets went 10-6 and made the playoffs. Mangini was dubbed “Mangenius” and had a cameo on “The Sopranos” after the season. His stock was never higher.

The bottom fell out in Year 2 with a 4-12 record. That led to a makeover last winter where the team spent $140 million acquiring veterans Kris Jenkins, Alan Faneca, Calvin Pace and Damien Woody.

The Jets then made their biggest move, trading for Brett Favre in August. The trade raised expectations and the pressure on Mangini.

Mangini looked poised to return to the playoffs in mid-November after big road wins in New England and Tennessee. The team was 8-3 with a two-game lead in the division but the bottom fell out.

They lost at home to Denver and in San Francisco before getting a miracle win over Buffalo at home. The Jets still controlled their playoff destiny entering the final two games of the season but lost in Seattle and at home to Miami to end the year 9-7 and out of the playoffs.

Mangini’s reign will be remembered for his tight-lipped approach with the media and the paranoia felt in the locker room. He brought the approach of his mentor, Bill Belichick from the Patriots. Jets veterans grumbled at how Mangini treated them.

We’ve always felt that it was amusing that Mangini was asked to appear on the Sopranos since he is the Big Pussy of the NFL. His tenure was short and fraught with human weakness, and his best-known coaching move will probably always be his decision to snitch on his former boss:

Before joining the Jets, Mangini served as New England’s defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick for a season after five years as the Patriots’ defensive backs coach. He quickly became regarded as one of the game’s top young coaching minds.

After the Jets traded the rights to coach Herm Edwards to the Kansas City Chiefs for a fourth-round pick in the 2006 draft, they replaced him with Mangini.

With a workmanlike and tightlipped approach, Mangini drew instant comparisons to Belichick. And they appeared warranted, especially after a quick turnaround season.

When Mangini came to the Jets, it was believed Belichick was annoyed his young assistant left him, marking the beginning of a rift. There also was talk that Belichick was angry Mangini was speaking to Patriots players and coaches about joining him in New York. That was capped by New England filing a tampering charge against the Jets in connection with New York’s trade talks with wide receiver Deion Branch. The Jets were cleared of the charges and Branch ended up in Seattle.

The dispute came to a head last year when the Jets reported the Patriots illegally used videotape to steal New York’s defensive signals during the season opener. Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team docked $250,000 and a draft pick.

Still, Mangini couldn’t lead the Jets out of the Patriots’ shadow — even with Tom Brady sidelined for the year — and were surpassed in the division by the Miami Dolphins.

A snitch AND a failure. Also, he’s extremely dopey looking.

Eric Mangini was never that good of a coach to begin with, his work on the New England defense was nothing special, and his coaching tactics in New Jersey were all cribbed from the competent coaches he’d worked for – boxing films from Parcells, being an asshole from Belichick. He’s a fraud.

Not that the team that just fired him deserves much credit, either. The Jets have long been too impatient to develop their own players and coaching talent, and for the last two decades have been pretty much just ripping off the hard work of other teams by throwing money at opposing players and coaches to come rescue them. The idea of developing stars instead of purchasing them, or the idea of putting a system in place from the top instead of trying to buy a coach who will show up white-knight-like with his own plan…these concepts are completely lost on the team Gregg Easterbrook calls “Jersey-B.”

Looking back across the past decade or so, the results of the Jets spendthrift technique have been pretty stinky. The Parcells/Curtis Martin heist netted the Jets a lot of regular season wins but nothing in the playoffs. The Herm Edwards years…we’re pretty certain nobody wants to dwell on those. Then the Jets hired Mangini away from their rivals to the north, figuring perhaps that his lack of any meaningful experience would be offset by his snitching abilities and talent for stealing Patriots staff. They tried to buy offensive and defensive lines on the free market and greedily snatched up Green Bay star Brett Favre, throwing away Chad Pennington in the process.

The Jets got off to a great start…then the team folded up like a well-lubed card table. Pennington showed up on the last week of the season leading Miami, beat the Jets’ asses and dropped them into 3rd place.

On cue, ownership blew everything up again.

The New York papers are already beating the drums for former Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher, calling him “The Holy Grail“. What they and the Jets don’t understand is that Bill Cowher’s coaching career was so successful because he worked for an organization with a strong, consistent, time-tested approach to winning in the NFL, one that is not predicated on throwing money at other people’s ideas, coaching talent and players.

Next up: Jets push hard to sign Matt Cassel.

As for Mangina, we hope he gets sent to the same group home that Randy Wagstaff was banished to, where daily beatings and “snitch bitch” carved into everything you own is de rigeur.

RT @jon_bois: how come he blocked the ball when the guy was clearly trying to shoot it? i guess some folks can’t stand it when others succe… 3 years ago

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